The Mirror
by Vanillasiren
Summary: Sitting vigil at her daughter's bedside after Kristina is beaten, Alexis resolves to break the abuse cycle. Contains intense and violent flashbacks - you have been warned. One-shot.


The Mirror

*Author's Note: According to previews and spoilers, Alexis is given very little perspective in the Kristina abuse storyline. This is my attempt to "correct" that grievous error by the GH writers. Fair warning: it's not graphic, but it's intense and violent. Hope you find it worthy.*

_No. No. Not Kristina. Not this. This was never supposed to happen to her._

Her daughter's face is a mirror. It is the mirror from nearly thirty years ago, the one she shattered in rage and pain, when she could no longer stand to look at her own mangled features. When she could no longer hold on to her numbness, her dispassion as she silently catalogued her injuries: cut lip, black eye, purple jaw, and finally, the finger-shaped bruises on her throat (count them again – one, two, three …). The memories flashed before her eyes even after the mirror was shattered, his voice still there, always there, molesting her mind:

"Mother is right, you are an ugly little thing, aren't you?"

"You might be prettier if you screamed, though." _Stavros._ _His hands around her neck._ "Scream for me, Alexis."

_A stoic silence, an icy façade._ Do not give him what he wants, _Stefan would say._ Head high, shoulders straight, my little one, _he would instruct her._ You are stronger than you know. You are brilliant, you are _mine_. No one can break you.

_Liar._

_Stavros loosens his grip, finally removing his hands from her after what seems to be an eternity of her ethereal, unaffected silence._ "Pathetic. I thought you would serve for my amusement at least. You are just as worthless as Stefan." _His words set her icy veneer ablaze, and she is speaking out before she can stop herself:_

"Don't you talk about him that way! Stefan is ten time the man you will ever be!"

_He strikes her across the face, sending her to the ground. He kicks her as she tries to crawl away, and then she cannot stifle them, her screams, and it is only the beginning. _

_And it is never over._

_Weeks later, she stares at the shattering mirror, and his voice seems to come from far away as he pounds frantically on the bathroom door._ "Alexis, are you all right? Alexis, please let me in!"

_Stefan. Her great defender, her beloved protector. Her everything._

_The door bursts open. She turns from the shattered mirror to stare at him. For a moment, they are suspended in time, staring at each other, her eyes full of pain, his eyes full of guilt. _

_Then she launches herself at him._

"Why weren't you there? Why didn't you save me? I called for you, I called for you and you _weren't there_! Why didn't you stop him, you promised, _you promised_…" _the rest of her words are lost in a jumble of screams, anguished, guttural cries, a sharp contrast to the long, terrified silence during which_ _has kept his vigil over her. She ate only when he begged her to, slept only in the safety of his embrace, and spoke … not a word. Not until now._

_He takes her blows, knowing it's what he deserves for failing her. He is crying, she is crying, and the only words he has for her are woefully inadequate:_ "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, _I'm sorry_!"

_She finally collapsed, sobbing in his arms. She can't hate him. It's unnatural to hate him. He is her family, her savior. He is all she has, her only source of comfort. She will be bound to him, always. And now he adds more words to his plaintive chorus, chanting them like a mantra:_

"I love you, I'm sorry, I love you, I'm sorry …"

_Slowly, her sobs subside._ "Cut my hair," _she says suddenly. He pulls back to stare at her._

"What?"

"He grabbed me by the hair, Stefan. Take the scissors and cut off my hair. I don't care how short it is. Cut it!" _She adds sharply when he hesitates, and he flinches at her vehemence, but he complies._

_Her thick curls fall to the floor, until the lovely mane that once trailed half-way down her back is no more, replaced by a short, fluffy tuft that frames her face like a halo. _

_It does not diminish her heart-breaking beauty, any more than the bruises do._

"Alexis…"

"I need to sleep now." _He glances around. The floor of the bathroom is strewn with the hair from her head, and the glass from the mirror. She is barefoot._

_He picks her up in his arms and carries her to her bedroom. He puts her on the bed and settles down beside her as she curls into his embrace, more like a child now than an angry young woman of sixteen._

"I love you, Stefan," _she whispers._

_And as she drifts back into sleep, welcoming its oblivion, she hears her voice, or perhaps imagines it, his words lingering on the edges of her consciousness:_ "I'm so sorry I let this happen to you."

***

Kristina is sleeping now. Alexis stares at her daughter and repeats the words she has inherited from him: "I'm so sorry I let this happen to you."

Kristina of course does not respond, but she can hear her daughter's voice nonetheless: "Why weren't you there? Why didn't you save me?" Had Kristina called for her, like she herself had called for Stefan?

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, mommy didn't save you, mommy didn't stop him from hurting you, mommy's not good enough for you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…. _

The tears fall, and Alexis turns away from her daughter, muffling her wrenching sobs in the fabric of her shirt.

Her heart is shattering, shattering like glass. Shattering like a mirror.

It is her curse, the curse of being a Cassadine. Her daughter, her mirror image, inheriting her legacy of violence and obsession, suffering and bloodshed.

She must break the cycle. She must collect the shards of her heart and shatter the one who did this to her daughter, shatter him into a million little pieces. The way Stefan broke Stavros' bones, bloodied his face, beat him within an inch of his life when he discovered the unspeakable things he had done to her.

But even as she summons all her resolve, calls back her icy façade, the willful detachment she needs to see her task through, she cannot shake his words, the words that _should _have been his last, echoing, echoing, once and forever, always in her head:

"_Remember me. The power does not die with me. It will go on. You … you will feel my rage long after."*_

THE END

*Stavros Cassadine on his "death" bed at General Hospital, 1983.


End file.
